ISP Donfig IP setting question.

I setup a ubuntu server and ISPConfig using the "The Perfect Setup - Ubuntu 6.10 Server (Edgy Eft) on HowtoForge. (I set it up a few months before 7.10 and only now have found time to play with it.)

The first thing I tried to do with it was change the IP address of the server from the Management tab, Server - Settings form. I put the new IP in and saved it, but the IP of the server was not changed. The form remembers the new IP between sessions, but the machine is still at the old IP address.

Please change the IP address in the file /etc/network/interfaces and then run:

/etc/init.d/networking restart

Another soulution is to enable the automatic network configuration in ISPConfig in /home/admispconfig/ispconfig/lib/config.inc.php. Every IP you change then in management > server > settings will be changed in the network configuration too.

How does one tell the difference between entries in ISPConfig that actually affect the system, and entries that apparently there only for display purposes? From the documentation I couldn't tell that the IP entry was not supposed to work.

For instance, If I'm configuring the DNS, or adding a new web or client, will those changes affect the system, or is that also a case where I enter the web information in to ISPConfig, then go through all the configuration files to manually set it up?

Actually I kind of thought that was supposed to be the benefit of ISPConfig, not having to manually edit the configs to manage the server.

Also, if I enable auto network configuration in config.inc.php, where is the other network settings entered? Things like gateway, netmask, DNS ... etc?

Every entry in ISPConfig is nescessary and no entry is for display purposes. E.g. the IP entrys are nescessary for the website IP addresses.

Please read my post above, I told you that ISPConfig is able to configure your network settings, but that this function is disabled by default. And this has a very good reason, as some poeple use advanced setups (e.g. routing) for their network cards that might be overridden when ISPConfig configures the network card automatically.

So before you start complaining, you should consider to ask why a special setting is handled this way

I don't mean to be complaining so much as just a bit frustrated and confused over which settings actually affect the system. I can certainly see why the IP setting might be disabled by default, but from the documentation I was unable to tell that it was disabled. Thanks for explaining it.

Maybe my phrase "display purposes" did not accurately reflect my intended meaning... Certainly the IP address would be used internally by ISPConfig for it's uses. But I'm still not sure how to tell which ISPConfig settings will actually change the server's settings and which ones don't. For instance on my test server in ISPConfig the IP address is currently set to a different value than the actual IP of the machine. There was no feedback to warn me that the address was not actually changed on the machine, or that it did not agree with the actual IP of the machine. I'm sure this would cause problems later on if not corrected.

As a further _hypothetical_ example of the nature of my question, if I add a new Web Site to my server. WITHOUT ISPConfig I manually edit many config files across several machines to add the IP address DNS entries, new users, and domain email addresses in Postfix ... and so on. The hard part for me is getting all those changes right.

WITH ISPConfig, how do I tell when the data entry fields work like the IP address where you can edit and save changes that don't actually affect the underlying server, and still require me to manually edit the underlying file to make the change?

I haven't found any "How To for Dummies" <that would be me grin> that show the steps in the correct order to setup a new Domain / Web / Email "the RIGHT way" ISPConfig. ISPConfig appears to setup and manage a "fancier" system than I normally run. More features managed under 1 interface like web mail and user modified email accounts and spam filtering.

I guess it might be necessary for me to buy a dummy test domain and try working through adding it. Not sure I can trust myself to migrate a live domain and DNS server to it, and get it right first try.

Thanks for your help. If you can point me to any "How To for Dummies" to make sure I do it the right way I'd appreciate it!